Course details

Writing for Academic Purposes

JA6 Acad. year 2005/2006 Summer semester

Current academic year

Writing course for postgraduate and intermediate students. Various writing skills are trained and developed during the course: taking notes, summary, reports and articles, description of a process or instrument.

Guarantor

Malíková Dagmar, PhDr.

Language of instruction

Czech

Completion

Examination

Time span

  • 13 hrs lectures
  • 13 hrs exercises

Department

Department of Foreign Languages (UJAZ)

Subject specific learning outcomes and competences

Ability to distinguish various writing styles,reconstruct the text on the base of taken notes, write a summary, a report, article and also make a good presentation.

Learning objectives

Acquiring different skills necessary for writing: reading comprehension and summary, controlled writing, free composition and presentation. Note: this is a two-semester course

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

To pass successful the course JA6/1.

Study literature

  • Sparling, D.: English or Czenglish?, Praha, SPN, 1989
  • Hladký, J.: Zrádná slova v angličtině, Praha, SPN, 1990

Fundamental literature

  • McArthur, T.: The Written Word. A course in controlled composition. Oxford University Press, 1990
  • Maley, A.: Writing Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate. Oxford Supplementary Skills. OUP, 1990

Syllabus of lectures

  • Basic writing styles
  • Informal writing style
  • Formal writing style
  • General formal writing style
  • Specialized-style characteristic
  • Characteristics of general-style article
  • Characteristics of specialized-style article
  • Specialized writing style
  • Writing a report
  • Writing an article
  • Writing an essay
  • Writing up your notes
  • Autumn semester test written
  • Main features of essay
  • Means of connecting ideas
  • Organizing a paragraph
  • Using direct and indirect speech
  • Using quotations and references
  • Effective taking notes
  • Organizing a passage
  • Characteristics of summary
  • Writing a summary
  • Keeping logical order in the text construction
  • Basic features of description
  • Exploiting source materials
  • Spring semester test written

Syllabus of numerical exercises

  • Tense system in English
  • How to use tenses properly
  • Kinds of sentences
  • Relative pronouns
  • Using participles
  • Analysis of sentences
  • Uses of the comma
  • The right word in the right place
  • Contrasts
  • Negative prefixes
  • Conjunctions and relative pronouns
  • Articles
  • Autumn semester test written
  • Expressing possibilities
  • Causes and effects
  • Compound words
  • Direct and indirect speech
  • Personal pronouns used impersonally
  • The phrasal verb
  • Conditional sentences
  • Various uses of the passive voice
  • Contrast within a sentence
  • Derived words
  • Simple and complex sentences
  • General sentence synthesis
  • Spring semester test written

Progress assessment

Study evaluation is based on marks obtained for specified items. Minimimum number of marks to pass is 50.

  • Active participation in the seminars
  • Self-study and fulfilling the set written tasks
  • Success at the written semester tests (min. 50%)

Controlled instruction

  • 75% attendance
  • Active participation in the seminars
  • Self-study and fulfilling the set written tasks
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